I'm going to get a laptop after all my holiday funds get settled. I've pretty much settled on getting something from Dell's outlet page, the E1505 seems to have good reviews for the price. I'm going into civil eng. and need this thing to last me at least 3 years. I'm thinking I'll hunt for a 2gig Core2Duo but may settle for a 1.83 if I find a good deal, 1000 ram, minimum 80gig hard drive, DVD burner. There are a ton more with Windows XP Home available, but the CoE website suggests XP Pro. So my questions are...would a 1.83 processor be too slow...and do I really need XP Pro? I see there is an upgrade from the student store for $69 to go to XP Pro if I need to. Thoughts? Suggestions?

12/22/2006 8:09:13 PM

that machine would run it with a snap

get it

12/22/2006 8:28:49 PM

1.83 is fine for a core2 duo.
you don't need XP Pro. For running applications and stuff, there's nothing Pro can do that Home can't that you need. Basically, if you don't know what the differnce between Home and Pro is, then you don't need Pro.

12/22/2006 8:29:22 PM

Yeah, like ^ he said, you'll be fine with 1.83 GHz. especially with a gig of ram behind it.

Also, it is cheaper to upgrade to XP Pro through the bookstore if you want to. Some engineering disciplines even offer a free download to their students thru Microsoft.

[Edited on December 22, 2006 at 8:36 PM. Reason : ^]

12/22/2006 8:35:59 PM

unless you know what you're doing with XP pro I wouldn't get it. I'm in engineering, but I have XP media edition

12/22/2006 8:42:32 PM

Pro has some more nice tools and configurations- but only for the advanced user (or those seriously interested in securing their OS for whatever reason).

I prefer Pro personally, but then, I'm CSC and go play with registry entries occasionally and all sorts of other wierd "tweaks" to my boxes when I have time to do so and just screw around with it, for actually getting stuff done, Home works just fine.

12/22/2006 9:30:33 PM

Thanks for the advice, finding something like I described on the outlet page drops the price by almost $500. I think I will just do that and buy the MS Office stuff through the student store, and maybe upgrade to Pro later if I need to. The only other variables would be the wireless card and the graphics card. Any thoughts on those?

12/22/2006 10:06:13 PM

^ what is your main use of the laptop? that'll help guide you with the video card.
Wireless cards are easily installed after the fact in some models of laptop, and there is always external, i wouldn't let that be a huge factor.

12/22/2006 10:12:12 PM

Not really gonna be doing alot of gaming on it, just mainly school stuff and some videos/dvds.

12/24/2006 9:42:41 AM

why not just wait a month for vista

12/24/2006 9:53:57 AM

Dell outlet sometimes has very good deals. I just bought an E1505 about couple weeks ago. Mine was a budget laptop though, I only need it when I go to class, since my main comp is a desktop. Anyway, the specs are 1.73 ghz duo core, 1 gb RAM, dual layer DVD burner, ATI X1300 128mb video card. I thought that's pretty good specs for a laptop that costs less than $700 after tax.

12/24/2006 12:27:39 PM

Good point on the Vista, it looks like I could upgrade to Vista if I needed to from either XP Home or Media versions. I still think I will let system go for 6 months before I upgrade. I'd like to let everybody work the bugs out of it first. There are a ton of E1505's on Dell's site running Media Center so I should be good to go now. Thanks.

12/24/2006 9:55:06 PM

Quote :

"why not just wait asix months for vista to stabilize a little"

12/25/2006 10:04:32 AM

Here is one that I am thinking about getting, I can buy the office software through the student store and upgrade to Vista later if I need too. Seems like a good price for a decent setup, what do you guys think?

* Inspiron 6400/E1505 Notebook: Intel Core 2 Duo processor T5600 (2MB Cache/1.83GHz/667MHz FSB)
* Genuine Windows XP Media Center 2005

System Price : $789.00

Operating System
Genuine Windows XP Media Center 2005Memory
1 GB DDR2 SDRAM 533MHz (2 DIMMs)Hard Disk Drive
80 GB EIDE SATA Hard Drive (5400 RPM)Video
128MB ATI MOBILITY RADEON X1300 HyperMemoryMedia Bay
8X DVD +/- RW w/dbl layer write capabilityCertified Refurbished
Certified RefurbishedBase
Inspiron 6400/E1505 Notebook: Intel Core 2 Duo processor T5600 (2MB Cache/1.83GHz/667MHz FSB)Hardware Upgrade
9 Cell Primary BatterySoftware Upgrade
Trend Micro PC-cillin with AntiVirus and Spyware removal 15-monthsNoteBook Screen
15.4 WXGA Notebook Screen Display with TrueLifeNetwork Interface Card
1390 Wireless Card

12/25/2006 1:38:00 PM

2gb of ram, highest res lcd possible

12/25/2006 10:06:28 PM

Think of this as a 3-4 year investment ... don't go for the cheapest option if you have no plans on upgrading in the future. Spend the money now. I agree on the smooth's recommendations, 2gb of ram, higher res lcd (if you'll use it ... I personally can't do above 1024x768 on a laptop ... anyways), get a modular bay battery, and upgrade the wireless card to an intel pro,

12/26/2006 10:51:09 PM

I ended up going with the system I listed above. If I had my choice I would have gotten a 256 video card and a faster wireless card, but they are already built on the outlet page. I will just upgrade the wireless card down the road and I will just live with the 128 video card. I just couldn't justify spending $500 more just to upgrade a few things I might not even notice. Thanks for the advice, I'm sure I will be following the threads about Vista soon.

12/27/2006 9:27:55 PM

get as much memory as you can. you will be using autocad/microstation. I would get at least 2 gigs with xp, and if you plan on upgrading to vista, there is no telling how much memory you will need

12/27/2006 9:35:21 PM